DARKNESS CAME SLOWLY, A gauzy haze of dust-laden, fading light streaks. Even when the final fiery edge of the sun disappeared, the temperatures stayed stuck in the nineties. Within a few hours, Swanson would be freezing his butt off. It would not really be cold by the thermometer, but a thirty-degree drop after sweltering in 110-plus heat would bring a good dose of the chills. When the sun took away its warmth, the sweat that had oozed from him all day and drenched his clothes would feel like ice when the nightly winds blew. The mission was to have been a quick in-and-out, so he had only the clothes on his back. Fuck it. Nothing he could do, and that missing sun was his clock.
It had to shift away and benignly bathe places like the south of France and Miami Beach and Waikiki and Bondi Beach before returning to Syria, but it would not really be gone very long. The sniper had to be out of the hide, do his job, and be long gone before that orange beast once again started to eat this chunk of sky.
He had finished the logbook, done the surveillance, eaten some more crackers and water, and pissed into a hole in the dirt beneath him. A Syrian army contingent had shown up at the helo crash site, done some cursory investigation, loaded up the bodies, and taken them away. Swanson felt pangs of guilt while he watched. What were they going to do with the bodies? Give them back? Deep in his gut, he had a sense of failure and was angry with himself. The saying that Marines don’t leave their own casualties behind was not just a catch-phrase. Dead or alive, everybody comes home.
Then reason took over. He did not have the resources to change this situation, and if he survived, he could report what had happened. And importantly, there was still one Marine who was alive and needed his attention, so all Swanson could do was bid a silent goodbye to the dead rescue team of Marines and hope the pinheads in Washington fought to bring them back.
The wrecked helicopters, stripped of all value, were left where they fell, just more bones in the desert, a macabre tourist attraction for snooping American satellites to photograph from space. Two new soldiers were dropped off to replace the guard post sentries Swanson had killed, and the army convoy left.
Swanson waited without anxiety as life began to slow down with the approach of action. His focus would narrow and he would see things differently, at a slower speed, more of a black-and-white film in a neighborhood theater than as a jerky, quick-cut television story. The metamorphosis would continue, like he was changing into someone new, and the sounds would amplify, the smells would become more intense, his eyesight would sharpen, and his reactions would quicken. Each breath would be slow. He had been an observer all day. Now he was becoming a sniper.
The village activity settled into an easier pace for the evening prayers and meal. Stores closed and the streets emptied. One by one the lights blinked out in the little windows because after a hard day of toil, working people wanted their rest. Some would make love, some would smoke a cigarette, some would dream of better times, and some were going to die by Kyle Swanson’s hand. That was a fact.
He used the final hour to finish settling into his zone, almost physically filing things away in mental drawers and cabinets and closing them tight. Shari was in a special compartment, with a tight lock on it. Whoever started all this mess back in Washington was in another. His family, friends, even the Marine Corps were banished from his thoughts, and as time slowed down, Swanson felt that familiar presence of another Kyle Swanson, someone outside himself who would help him through the night, guiding and watching and planning and whispering in his head. Kyle knew a psychiatrist would love to get hold of him someday, at first for a long talk, and then maybe to saw open his skull, shake out his brain, and try to find what made it work. Swanson was curious about that, too, but did not question that other voice in his head. It was part of his natural progression into his lone gunman battle mode, and he trusted it. The voice had been a big help in other tight places, when he was kicking in doors and crawling through swamps. A bit of paranoia was a good thing when you were really in danger. It was not fright, just instinct, a sixth sense sharpened over the years, a total awareness of his environment that almost let him know what was around a corner.
Turning to Excalibur, he checked the ammo load. He pulled the bolt back enough to slide a fingertip into the raceway and tap the brass bottom of the big.50-caliber round seated in the chamber, then pushed the bolt home again. Four more rounds rested in the magazine below.
Another hour passed and he hardly moved at all, just waiting. Black dark now. Dark as sin. It was time to roll.
The first thing he planned to do was tweak the single guard on the Zeus, apparently the only person still awake in the entire village. Swanson checked the logbook for the range, 547 yards, then brought Excalibur’s cool epoxy stock to his cheek, stared down the scope, and saw the figure standing motionless, probably leaning against a tire, with an AK-47 drooped across a shoulder. He was obviously having a hard time staying awake at one o’clock in the morning. The advanced night-vision ability of Excalibur showed every possible detail, not just a green shape, and Swanson fine-tuned the focus ring. He clicked the button to lock onto the target, and again to confirm the range. The GPS, the gyrostabilizer, and the laser communicated, and numbers flashed in the scope as the built-in computer continued to enhance and clear the picture and figure out the range, windage, and barometric pressure. When all was ready, the azure stripe flashed on the edge of the scope. It could just as well have been a neon sign spelling out, “This dude is history.” This was just target shooting and almost unfair. Almost.
The guard’s figure almost filled the scope and Kyle could see the young, bored, sleepy face. Adjusting to the final numbers, he dropped the sight to an inch above the center of the chest. Roy Rogers and John Wayne might shoot guns out of a bad guy’s hand, but professionals went for center mass, the sure hit. Swanson slowed his breathing even more, and the heartbeat followed suit, and the crosshairs of Excalibur did not wiggle.
It was unfortunate that this young man had been so low on the totem pole that he drew the midwatch guard duty. He had been on post for only ten minutes, since one o’clock, and Kyle had watched as the boy relieved the earlier guard. They stood four-hour shifts. Nobody would miss this fellow until at least 0500. Swanson exhaled a half-breath and started the easy trigger pull as his muscle memory kicked in-time to work-slow and smooth and straight and steady and squeeze. The rifle seemed to fire on its own, and although Kyle felt the recoil buck against his shoulder, there was no sound other than a quiet cough as the silencer killed the noise. In the scope, Swanson watched the big bullet slam into the guy’s chest and explode inside him, ripping his muscles and guts to pieces. The location, speed, and power of the shot did not give the guard time to cry out or even look surprised. He crumbled to the dirt beside the big antiaircraft gun, dead before he hit the ground. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood. Swanson used his thumb and two fingers to jack a fresh round into the chamber and swept the scope around the village. He heard a goat bawl and a dog bark twice, but nothing indicated anyone had heard his shot.
He moved from the hide on his elbows and knees, the other voice talking now, whispering, Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. He squelched the natural urge to get up and run to the downed soldier, and instead began crawling, fast but quietly, with the easy grace of a night predator.